


free and young (and we can feel none of it)

by sweetmusic



Series: hozier fic title generator challenge [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: It's sexual, M/M, Midtown has a ten year reunion, Smut, Title from a Hozier Song, day one is this, harley/peter established relationship, i'm doing a hozier fic title challenge, it doesn't get super explicit but like, past fwb between flash/peter, slight insecure flash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 18:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21141305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetmusic/pseuds/sweetmusic
Summary: That’s the biggest downside of being a little bit in love with two of his friends that are already in love with each other—he knows how good they are together, and he knows there’s no place for him. It doesn’t matter if this is now the second time he’s woken up in their bed, six years after the first, because this is simply a fluke. Which is why he left before they woke up last time, to avoid the awkward morning after dismissal, and why he should do the same thing now, should get to his feet and put on his rumpled clothes and make his way to his apartment a few blocks away, where he can cry himself to sleep in lonely, aching solitude.





	free and young (and we can feel none of it)

**Author's Note:**

> So, there's a fic title generator that only uses lyrics from Hozier songs. Hozier is currently on tour and I saw him live at one of his shows. Somehow, those two separate things led to a weird idea.
> 
> Basically, I clicked the little button on the Hozier fic title generator fifteen times, and for each one, I will write a one shot. This is the first one shot.
> 
> Will this challenge be updated every day? Hopefully, but if not, don't yell at me about it. I'm trying my best.
> 
> Ships for this challenge will probably just be mashups of this ship, so this one is ot3, the next one could be spiderflash, or parkner, or harley/flash, or all three. Spiderflash ones might be based in MCU or in TASM, depending on the one shot. I'll try to make each one clear by adding a little blurp in the beginning notes.
> 
> Obviously, all fics including Harley are based in the MCU.
> 
> Most of them will probably be sexual and/or heavy themes, because Hozier lyrics tend to draw out raw emotions like that.

In his defense, he only feels mildly frustrated when Peter picks up the phone with a rushed out, breathless flurry of words, saying, “Hey, hi, sorry, I know, I’m on my way!”

Harley almost smiles a bit, but that frustration, however small, is still very much present, so he just lets out a huff of air, squints up at the sky, and asks, “Are you really, or are you in the middle of another stupid bank robbery that the police had under control and could manage without you? Because Karen already told me where you are, and I’m currently standing outside of _your_ high school with no way to get in because I never actually went here. What’s the point of being your date to your ten year reunion if you’re not even here for it, hm? I’m just gonna freeze my ass off out here waiting for you.”

“You’re being a little dramatic, seeing as you’re the human embodiment of a fucking heater,” Peter quips, snickering lightly under his breath. There’s a swoosh of air, a distant thud, and then Peter goes on to tell him, “I really am on my way, I swear. I didn’t even mean to get involved in this, I was just passing by and a cop saw me and yelled about how Spider-Man was there to help, and then I couldn’t just, like, _leave,_ y’know? That’d make me look like an asshole, and I’m very carefully trying to avoid that reputation.”

Humming, Harley cocks his head slightly to the side, pretends to consider Peter’s words, and then lets out a faux sigh of reluctance as he says, “Fine, I guess I can forgive you for being late. Just hurry up, please?”

“Trust me, I’m hurrying. Five minutes, okay? Hopefully less. Love you.”

That makes Harley smile, like it always does, as he replies, “Yeah, love you, too, superhero.”

Peter goes to retort something, but Harley ends the call before he can, knowing that talking while swinging will only slow him down. Besides, he’s standing on the curb outside the front of a school he’s only ever heard stories about, with other attendees walking past him and giving him strange looks, like they think they recognize him but can’t place how. Which is fair, really—his face is well known, thanks to the whole being adopted by Tony Stark when he was a teenager thing, but these people are clearly trying to place him as a member of their class, someone they went to school with, so that recognition just isn’t really clicking in their minds. Harley’s got charisma and training for publicity and public interactions out the ass, but it feels different, knowing that these are people who Peter went to school with. He just feels awkward, standing alone and offering tense little smiles to everyone who catches his eye.

He wonders if he’s already seen any of the kids who used to bully Peter, but decides not to think about that just yet, instead checking the time on his phone before turning his eyes up expectantly, scanning over the surrounding buildings for the familiar flash of red and blue. The five minutes are almost up.

Thirty seconds, he thinks to himself, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to pretend he isn’t amused. Twenty nine, twenty eight, twenty seven, twenty six…

Just as he gets down to _five, four, three,_ Spider-Man swings around the corner, does an impressive sort of mid-air spin, and lands directly in front of Harley. The mask retreats, revealing a red faced Peter Parker, panting slightly from just how fast he made his way across the city, and with a clear breathlessness to his tone, he says, “See? Five minutes. I told you so.”

“With three seconds to spare,” Harley points out, laughing lightly. The people in the parking lot—not many, seeing as the actual reunion started about ten minutes ago and a majority of the class attending actually got here on time—are all staring at the two of them with wide, surprised eyes. It’s laughable, really, because Peter revealed his identity less than a year after graduation, before going off to MIT with Ned—which is when Tony finally introduced Harley and Peter, because they were both attending the same school and he figured it was about time—and graduating top of his class, with Harley a close second and Ned an even closer third. The fact that Spider-Man is attending this reunion shouldn’t be all that shocking, because everyone knows that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, and yet these people seem surprised.

“Three seconds wasted on talking instead of getting a hello kiss,” Peter says, a cheeky sort of grin on his face as he brings a hand down on his left wrist, tapping it twice to signal the nanobots to retreat into his watch. Within seconds, he’s no longer dressed as a superhero, instead left in one of his nicer pairs of jeans and a sweater that he definitely stole from Harley—looking like regular Peter Parker. “You ready?”

Harley rolls his eyes, but then he pulls Peter in for a quick kiss that doesn’t last nearly as long as either of them would like (they haven’t seen each other for over a week, thanks to Harley flying off to Tokyo with Pepper to help assess some Stark Industries stuff, so it’s less of a clingy thing and more of a _it’s been nine days and I really fucking missed you_ thing) before he pulls back with a grin of his own, lightly pats Peter’s cheek twice, and matter-of-factly tells him, “I’ve been ready for thirty minutes, Parker.”

Snorting, Peter pushes Harley’s hand away from his face and steps up onto the curb, stealing another quick kiss before grabbing his hand and making his way towards the door. He throws a quick, “Better not keep the princess waiting any longer, then,” over his shoulder, and he laughs when Harley pinches his side in retaliation, though he offers no objection, which says plenty on its own.

Getting into the reunion is a breeze after that, Peter flashing his ID to confirm that he is who he says he is, then introducing Harley as his date, scoring them two name tags that they proudly slap onto their chests after writing their names on them in big, bold letters. “Ned is already here, I think,” Harley tells Peter as they make their way to the gymnasium, where tables upon tables have been set up, along with food and drinks for the attendees to pick away at. “I saw MJ when her and Shuri got here, too.”

“I see Betty,” Peter murmurs, standing up on his tiptoes as they reach the doors leading into the gym. “And where there’s a Betty, there’s always a… oh, there’s Ned! They have a table, c’mon!”

* * *

It’s not that the reunion in boring, per se—they’re in their late twenties, and life is busy, so having a chance to sit down with a majority of their long term friends and just hang out for a bit is kind of a rarity these days—but again, nine days have passed since Harley and Peter last saw each other, and after about an hour of mingling and awkwardly making nice with people that none of them were friends with in high school that insist on saying hi because they’re kind of famous now, they find themselves leaving the gym with their fingers intertwined, Peter leading the way down the hall and towards a little storage closet hidden from the eyes of everyone else. “This thing was always empty when I went here,” Peter assures, glancing towards the security camera at the end of the hall before tugging Harley into the closet with one hand, using the other to dig out his phone and tap at it with his thumb. A few moments later, he pockets it, looking smug as he locks the door. “Camera’s taken care of, too. Even easier than I remember.”

“And who did you lock yourself in here with?” Harley asks, humming as he runs a hand through Peter’s hair, beginning the process of mussing it up. He tugs Peter closer, skims their lips together, and softly questions, “Was it someone in that gym? Should I be jealous?”

“You know damn well who it was, Keener,” Peter scoffs, pushing Harley back against the wall before pressing against him, hands sneaking beneath the hem of his shirt to settle against the bare, smooth skin of his waist, palms pressed to hip bones, thumbs caressing circles against his abdomen. He nips at Harley’s lower lip, then swipes his tongue over the bite, soothing it. “You were with him, too. Remember that, Harley? It was my twenty second birthday, and you were so jealous when you saw him, but he took one look at us and was begging to be fucked. You saw him in there, didn’t you? When he went to get another drink, when he was across the gym. He was looking at us. Do you think he knows where we are?”

Harley grunts, tips his head back and lets his eyes flutter shut as he grips onto Peter’s forearm. It’s still hard to explain, the… the _dynamic_, he supposes, between the three of them. From what he’s heard from everyone else, Flash Thompson was nothing but an asshole to Peter in high school, even if he has grown since then and is now an honorary member of their odd little friend group, but according to Peter, him and Flash pushed each other’s buttons for fun, realized that there was something else burning beneath their skin, and one day, somewhere towards the beginning of their Junior year, the tension had bent and bent until it snapped in the middle of an empty locker room, where Flash had shoved Peter into a bathroom stall in case anyone walked in, and they had gotten each other off right then and there.

To Harley’s understanding, Peter and Flash never dated. They just fucked a lot. Ned didn’t even know about it, and the only person other than Harley who’s aware of that information is MJ, who had pieced it together during their senior year. Shuri probably knows, because MJ tells Shuri everything, but besides that, it’s been kept a neat little secret hidden in a box beneath the bed. Harley and Flash got along fine when they met at the age of twenty, two years after him and Peter had to stop their little escapades for college, a year and a half after Peter and Harley went on their first date. And yeah, maybe Harley did get a little jealous at Peter’s twenty second birthday party, but that’s because Flash was blatantly staring at Peter’s ass. The jealousy had settled when he realized Flash was staring at Harley’s ass, too. For Peter’s birthday, Flash had happily bent over the bathroom counter in their shitty apartment while the party went on without them, took two loads of cum and only allowed himself to release a full body orgasm when Peter had scraped his teeth over his earlobe and told him he could. And in the shaky handed, knee trembling aftershock, Peter and Harley had guided him to their room, locked the door, and provided him the care he needed, made sure he ate and gave him water until he fell asleep.

In complete honestly, Harley was expecting something to change after that, was kind of wanting something to change because it had felt a bit more significant than a random threesome, but the following morning, when Peter and Harley stumbled out of bed, Flash was gone. None of them have brought it up since, other than when it’s just the two of them, alone like this, making each other turned on. Even after six years, they haven’t forgotten that night. They don’t want to. They don’t think they never will.

“Maybe we should call him,” Peter murmurs, brushes his lips across Harley’s jaw, down his neck, scrapes his teeth over his adam’s apple just to see the way Harley shivers. “You think he’d join us in here, sneaking away to get off like we’re still teenagers? Y’know, the first time I ever fucked him was in here, when we were skipping AP Chem. I had to cover his mouth because he couldn’t stay quiet, and he was up against the wall, just like—” Peter lowers his hands to grip Harley’s thighs and hoist him up, tapping just a bit into his strength to help as Harley’s legs instinctively lock around Peter’s waist, knees hooked over his hips and ankles locking behind his back, “—this.”

“Peter,” Harley rasps, feeling the bulge in Peter’s jeans against the curve of his ass, and suddenly he’s aching for it, deep within himself, begging to be filled. “Fuck, baby, please.”

The way that Peter chuckles is dizzying. “It was always different when I fucked him,” he muses, still mouthing a bit at the side of Harley’s throat as he speaks. “Fast, you know? And rough. But when he fucked me… I don’t think he knew I was Spider-Man, at least not until I came out to the public about it, but he seemed to realize how much more sensitive to touch I am than most people. When he fucked me, it was gentle, always in a bed, never at school. A lot like how you fucked me, how you still do, sometimes, when we feel like being soft and slow. Nothing like how you fucked him, how we _both_ fucked him—”

A strangled sort of whine rumbles it’s way from the back of Harley’s throat, images running through his head, shaky snapshots of a white knuckled grip on the edge of the bathroom counter as Flash let out an open mouthed groan, jaw dropped, practically drooling as Harley fucked him, Peter’s nimble fingers finding a way to keep stretching Flash even further, until Flash was a babbling mess begging for both of them, insisting that he could take it, pleading and pleading for two cocks at once. It had been more than a little difficult, finding out a way to make it work and realizing how much easier it would be if they just tucked themselves into decency for long enough to get to the bedroom down the hall, but that hall was filled with people who could probably hear them anyway, so it didn’t seem worth the effort to do much more than lay Harley on the floor, Flash splayed out over him and Peter on his knees, draping himself over Flash’s back. Harley had seen his face as he adjusted to the stretch of both of them inside of him, had watched as his glassy eyes clouded with a hazy pleasure, and Harley had kissed him, open mouthed and slow and spit slick in a way that probably should have been a little bit gross, Harley sometimes has dreams where he sees that face, always wakes up to a sticky mess when he does.

“You’re thinking about it,” Peter practically whispers, no longer biting at Harley’s skin, just lightly digging his nails into Harley’s thighs with the hands he has propped beneath him to hold him up, his gaze a bit unfocused as he looks at Harley’s flushed face. “You’re thinking about him.”

Harley’s mouth is so, so dry. “Yeah,” he gusts out. “Yeah, I am.”

The look on Peter’s face is that of someone who just won the lottery. “Good. I am, too. And you wanna know something interesting?” Harley doesn’t bother responding as Peter leans forward, until he’s flicking out his tongue to lick at the shell of his ear and says, “I can hear his heartbeat, right outside the door, and Christ, honey, it’s beating _fast_. Should we let him in, or just make him listen to us?”

“God, let him in, please,” Harley gasps, grips on to Peter’s shoulder at the mere thought of it, his mind lingering on that night, remembering the sounds of it, the feeling. “Please, please, _please/”_

Without saying anything, Peter reaches over and flicks open the lock with a quiet click, and then they wait, both of their eyes trained on the door, practically holding their breath with the anticipation, wondering, hoping, wanting. It must only be a few seconds that passes, but it feels slow, drawn out, like years and years have passed before, finally, the door knob twists, and all they can do is grin.

* * *

Flash wakes up in a king sized bed that doesn’t belong to him, soft silky sheets against bare skin, a certain soreness to his limbs that quickly brings back the memories of the night before—of seeing the two of them, getting to talk to them for the first time in long, busy months, feeling those emotions stirring in chest that he’s been fighting to rid himself of for years now. He remembers excusing himself from their table to get a drink, ignoring the people he only talked to in high school when they approached him at parties, and got a plastic cup full of something too sweet and lacking the strong kick that he wanted. He had tried not to look, but it was impossible to keep his eyes away, watching the way they always leaned into each other, filled in one another’s space like two halves of a puzzle, only looked away when Peter glances over and met his eyes and he was too embarrassed to even prevent he hadn’t been caught. A few moments later, when he had the courage to look back, he had seen the pack of their heads as Peter guided Harley out the doors, glanced over his shoulder at the last second to meet Flash’s eyes again, only that time it was with a little smirk and a barely there wink that Flash was sure he hallucinated.

And then, chugging what was left in his cup to aid his suddenly too dry throat, he had gone after them, because maybe the wink hadn’t been a hallucination, and maybe there was no harm in double checking.

Stepping into that stupid storage closet felt like stepping back in time, a sudden avalanche of memories sweeping across his mind that he hadn’t been prepared to handle, and within those four walls were the two people he’s been a little bit in love with for quite some time now, and as Harley had tugged him in for an open mouthed kiss, as Peter pressed bruising finger tips to his hips and the three of them had melded into one another, fallen in step like recalling a long forgotten dance, Flash had images and remnants of a teenage life spent sneaking into that very closet when he was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

Locking the door that he once leaned on while a younger, more inexperienced Peter dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead against the same wall that he once slumped against with a heaving chest as Peter clamped a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. And then there were more… sweet memories, too, the ones that made teenage Flash wonder if maybe they were more than fuckbuddies later turned friends, like the anniversary of the death of Ben Parker, when Flash had found Peter curled in on himself and crying and Flash had sat besides him and stammered his way through the breathing exercises that he once read about online, or when Flash had gotten chewed out by his dad over the phone because of a B- and he’d gone to the closet to try and calm down and Peter had found him there, had stayed on the other side of the small space and calmly spoke to him until Flash’s fists unclenched and he could really breathe again.

And he knows now, the morning after they fooled around in the closet, after he foolishly agreed to go home with them so that they could fool around in their bed, that those sweeter moments he remembers are nothing in comparison to what Harley and Peter have. He knows that he doesn’t belong here with them.

That’s the biggest downside of being a little bit in love with two of his friends that are already in love with each other—he knows how good they are together, and he knows there’s no place for him. It doesn’t matter if this is now the second time he’s woken up in their bed, six years after the first, because this is simply a fluke. Which is why he left before they woke up last time, to avoid the awkward morning after dismissal, and why he should do the same thing now, should get to his feet and put on his rumpled clothes and make his way to his apartment a few blocks away, where he can cry himself to sleep in lonely, aching solitude.

He really is going to, as well, is taking in a deep breath and planning to detangle himself from these sheets and run away as quietly and quickly as possible, when an arm is tossed around his waist and pulling him in, pressing his back flush against a bare chest, feels a cold nose press to the side of his neck, lips brushing against his shoulder as Harley murmurs, “You’re gon’ run out on us again, aren’t you?”

It feels like there’s something sharp lodged in Flash’s throat. “I…”

“Don’t want you to run out on us,” Harley says, nuzzles against Flash’s skin with a hum, lifting the arm thrown across Flash to reach out blindly, until he finds Peter’s hand and grabs onto it, pulls on it, squeezes it until Peter lets out a sleepy huff and rolls over to squint at them, scans over the sight of his long term boyfriend curled possessively around his high school fuckbuddy. “Babe,” Harley croaks, voice slightly muffled by Flash’s shoulder. “Tell ‘im. Tell ‘im we don’t want him to leave.”

“Leave?” Peter repeats, and his voice is still a wreck from the night before, gravelly and low in a way that sends involuntary little shivers down Flash’s spine. He meets Flash’s wide eyes with a little frown, something hard to read in his eyes. “You’re leaving?”

Flash has to clear his throat, and then clear his throat again, before he can respond. “I mean, I… I should, right? You two are… and… and I’m just… I should go. I should go, right? Like last time.”

Shuffling forward, until they’re basically nose to nose, Peter says, “We didn’t want you to go last time.”

“You…” Flash trails off, confused and a little breathless and so, so warm due to the body heat pressed to his back and his front, feeling Peter’s soft exhales brush against his face with the close proximity, Harley’s breath doing the same against the back of Flash’s neck. “But you… why would you…?”

“Don’t leave,” Harley murmurs, pressing a kiss to the juncture where neck meets shoulder, worries the skin between his teeth. “We want you. Christ, Thompson, it’s insane how much we want you.”

And it’s tempting, so beyond tempting, heat pooling in the pit of his twisting stomach, heart thundering in his chest, pumping molten want through his veins, but he can’t do that to himself. Flash has been tasting heartbreak on the back of his tongue since he was twenty years old, different than he was in high school, ready to properly apologize for being an ass to Peter, ready to admit that them being fuckbuddies had been his own way to denying anything more than a physical attraction, planning to ask Peter to dinner and pursue the feelings he had adamantly ignored in high school, only to be introduced to Harley Keener, Peter’s boyfriend of over a year, and instead of being jealous or bitter or angry, Flash had felt butterflies at the sight of Harley’s toothy grin, found his gaze catching on Peter’s hand settling on Harley’s waist, felt dizzy and overwhelmed as he watched them together, and as the months went by, Flash went from having a stupid high school crush on Peter to being head over heels for both Peter and Harley, and now it’s been over eight years and Flash can’t put himself through this, so he shakes his head, feeling choked up as he does. “I can’t do that,” he whispers, hoarse. “I can’t be—I can’t be the guy you two bring to bed sometimes. Not when it means—when it means more to me than that. That’s not fair.”

For a long moment, there’s no reaction, no response, and Flash has his eyes squeezed shut because he doesn’t want to see the awkward disgust on their features when they realize what he’s implying, and he thinks he’s expecting them to withdraw from him, to let him go and politely ask him to go home and maybe they’ll still be friends after this but maybe they won’t and there’s nothing he can do to change that, nothing but accept defeat and hope that he might finally be able to move on.

But then Harley kisses his neck again, more earnestly this time, the action no longer slow with sleepiness, and Peter’s fingertips dance alone Flash’s abdomen, up his chest, over his adam’s apple, until he’s cupping Flash’s face in his palm and kissing him, their mouths slotting together in the same perfect way that they did when they were sixteen. Flash is weak and foolishly hopeful and he melts into it, grips Peter’s forearm in one hand and reaches back to tangle fingers into Harley’s hair with the other, wanting them closer, wishes for nothing more than to be bracketed in on both sides by the two of them.

“It’s more,” Harley tells him, tone hushed and earnest, rubbing a thumb in circles against Peter’s hip as he loops his other arm under Flash to wrap around his waist and tug him impossibly closer. Flash is trying to focus his mind on returning Peter’s languid kiss but everything about this little moment of so distracting that he sort of just pliantly parts his lips and lets Peter lick into his mouth while Harley mumbles against the shell of his ear. “It was always more, Flash. That night, when you were with us… we never forgot it. We never wanted to, either, and we were always so disappointed when we remembered that you left. Just assumed it meant that it was a one time thing for you, even if we wanted it to be so much more.”

There’s an involuntary little rumble that squeaks its way from the back of Flash’s throat, and it gets swallowed by Peter’s mouth still on his, though Peter just chuckles at the sound and breaks the kiss with hooded eyes and a lazy sort of smile playing at his lips. “We want you to stay,” he murmurs, nudges his nose against Flash’s, gaze heavy. “Unless you still wanna go, then we’ll just—”

“No,” Flash breathes, tightens his hold both on Peter’s arm and in Harley’s hair, shakes his head with wide, pleading eyes. “No, no, I—I wanna stay. Shit, I _always_ wanted to stay. I never wanted to go.”

“Then stay,” Peter says simply, trailing a hand down Flash’s front. “And after this, we’ll take you out for breakfast, or have Friday order in, or whatever the hell you want, and we can call it a date. Maybe go out for dinner tonight, too. Somewhere nice. Harley told me a few years ago that he would like to see you in a proper suit. I think he just wants the chance to rip it off you, but that can wait ‘til after dinner.”

Flash feels his breath hitch as fingers curl around him, pushes into it, then pushes back against Harley’s pelvis flush to Flash’s ass, can’t choose which is more appealing, more addictive. That’s part of the problem, it seems. In hindsight, he should be able to pick Peter over Harley, has a history with Peter, but choosing between the two is impossible. All he can do is helplessly try to do both, push forward, push back, a whimper and a whine high in his throat. “Oh, god, p-please—”

Harley bites at Flash’s neck, rubs against the swell of his ass and grunts softly at the friction. “Keep saying please like that—" he voice is practically a growl, “—and we’ll give you anything you want.”

“Please,” Flash rasps, airy and breathless and overwhelmed in the best possible way. _“Please.”_

“Anything,” Peter tells him, pumps his hand faster and meets Harley’s half lidded gaze of Flash’s shoulder. Harley nods, lets his eyes flutter shut, and softly agrees, “Anything.”

And that, Flash thinks, is more than enough.


End file.
